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Posted on 12/31/2001 10:19:18 AM PST by tophat9000

Part 1 The WW2 German A Bomb-------------------

	Suspension Lug (Fin Attachment?)
This device was to use a total of 10 layers of semi-refined U-235/238, alternating with Neutron absorbing kerosene. On impact, plungers would crush "Präparat", releasing neutrons, as shear pins broke, allowing the Uranium plates to come together via inertia and make a supercritical mass. The device would then detonate, or at least melt down, causing massive contamination. The target was to be midtown Manhattan. Two prototypes MAY have been built in 1945.        Impact Plunger to        Crush "Präparat"		U-235/238 (551 kg) Kerosene Ballast (Iron?) Shear Pins Polonium/Beryllium "Urchin" (?)   Total Weight:  1000 kg (2205 lbs)
	|–––––– approx. 2.2 feet  (0.65 m)–––––|	P.F  -  2000

Over the years,there has been a good deal of speculation on the German's atomic program of W.W.II.  By putting together information from a number of reliable sources (listed at the end of the article), I have endeavored to give a brief overview of the project, as well as a cutaway drawing of what the finished weapon may have been like, and how it may have been delivered.
In the year 1914, H.G. Wells authored a small book entitled "The World Set Free". In it, he described a fictional future war fought with atomic weapons. The book caused a stir in physicists worldwide, and some began to look into the possibility that the energy that slowly emanated from radioactive elements could, if released all at once, cause considerable destruction.
First in Great Britain, and then later in the United States, research began to show that such a weapon stood within the realm of possibility, if certain fundamental problems could be solved:

• Uranium, the most available of the radioactive elements, consisted of two different isotopic forms: U-238, a stable, non-reactive form composed over 99% of the metal as found in nature, while U-235, a highly radioactive form, comprised the tiny remaining proportion. In it's natural form, the metal was not capable of sustaining a nuclear reaction.
• A nuclear reaction required that the neutrons emitted by one decaying atom strike other atoms in the vicinity to cause them also to decay; but the speed at which neutrons left a decaying U-235 atom was so high that they were far more likely to simply pass through other uranium atoms, without having any effect on them. A method would have to be found to slow them down.
• If a method could be found to refine natural uranium to the point where the proportion of U-235 would reach around 3%, then a reactor could be made. This would allow non-reactive U-238 to be transformed, by bombardment with radiation, into a new element-plutonium; with the atomic number of 239 which also could be used for weapons.

PART TWO: GERMAN RESEARCH

In Germany, the story was very different - nuclear physics was viewed with suspicion, due to fact that many physicists were Jewish; and the whole concept stood at odds with the party's official view of the cosmos - which was very strange indeed.
(See "The Nazis and the Occult" by Dusty Sklar; and remember "Ice is not frozen water; water is melted ice.")
Besides not devoting enough effort to research, the German's made a simple, profound mistake early on; when they tested graphite as a moderator to slow the neutrons of a decaying uranium atom down to a speed where they could be used to cause other atoms to fission - But the graphite they used wasn't pure; and the impurities absorbed the neutrons, making the researchers write it off as a candidate for nuclear research - in reality it was an excellent moderator, low in cost and easily acquired.
With the apparent failure of graphite, the only other substance that appeared to hold promise was "Heavy Water" an exotic, and rare form of ordinary water in which deuterium, a form of the hydrogen atom, that is greater in atomic weight, replaces the ordinary hydrogen in H2O.
With a minuscule budget, and heavy water obtained from separators in hydro-electric dams, the German atomic bomb program got off to a very shaky start.
Working with what little they had, the physicists started trying to build a working atomic reactor - and here's where things start to get VERY interesting - according to the commonly held chain of events, the atomic reactor was a complete flop. It was found at the end of the war, a large cauldron of heavy water with hundreds of cubes of uranium suspended by chains inside it. The whole device looked more like something to be used in black magic, than serious science, and would have been right at home in a Wagner opera.
But there was another device built earlier; and on June 23, 1942, something went very wrong with it. This "Uranium Machine" as it, and the other test reactors were called, was located at the University of Leipzig, and was under the control of Werner Heisenberg, Head of the German atomic program.
The device consisted of two large aluminum hemispheres bolted together around the periphery, and contained a central sphere of heavy water surrounded by powdered uranium; it had been immersed in a pool of ordinary water for twenty days, when on the 23rd of June, it was noticed that bubbles were beginning to escape from it.
The sphere was lifted out of the water, and a access hatch on its outside was opened to determine what was amiss.
On opening the hatch, a hissing sound, followed by a jet of fire, came out of the sphere. Thinking that the uranium had somehow ignited, the scientists hosed the sphere down with water, until the fire appeared to be out. They then drained the heavy water out of the inner sphere, so that it would not be contaminated, and re-sealed the sphere and lowered it back into the water tank for safety's sake.
For a few hours all seemed to be well - then the sphere was seen to be emitting bubbles again, and more disturbingly, the water that it was immersed in began to boil, indicating a great deal of heat was being generated.
The scientists gathered around, and began frantically discussing what to do.... then, in horror, they noticed that the sphere was vibrating, and BEGINNING TO SWELL IN SIZE.
Everyone fled from the room, as a loud explosion, and a hailstorm of burning uranium, followed.
Fire crews were called and quickly put out the fires in the room; but no amount of water seemed capable of dousing the fire in the sphere, until it burnt out on its own two days later.
This is a very interesting event. First off - what was the purpose that the sphere was supposed to accomplish? Why put uranium and heavy water in a sphere made of aluminum and then sit back and wait three weeks?
As we read above, heavy water is a moderator - a substance that slows down neutrons, so that they may interact with other atoms.
If natural uranium undergoes nuclear bombardment, some of the U-238 will be transmuted into plutonium, while some is transmuted into U-233, another fissionable form. Aluminum, like beryllium, has the property of emitting neutrons when bombarded by alpha particles such as those generated by radium or polonium  To accomplish a significant amount of transmutation will take a while, several weeks in fact.
Wanna put one and two together? If this all sounds speculative and far fetched, you might want to get a copy of the March 1999 "Readers Digest", which reprints an article from "Harpers" magazine about a young man of seventeen years of age named David Hahn, who in 1994 built a "Uranium Machine" of his own out of aluminum, uranium metal, some thorium from gas lamp mantles, radium paint, and of course duct tape. His contraption worked so well that the EPA had to wear full environment suits to haul the end results of his experiment to a radioactive disposal site.
Now, he was a Boy Scout - but considering what he had to work with, is it inconceivable that Heisenberg could have accomplished at least as much in 1942?
Maybe you don't have to go to all the trouble of enriching the uranium; maybe be you can give it a friendly environment, and some of it will turn into plutonium, with a little help from some radium.
This is admittedly speculation. But something very odd indeed happened in that laboratory. And the description of the difficulty in putting the fire out sounds a lot like those at Chernobyl.
And from that accident, I think, came the germ of an idea, and the germ would be nurtured in the "Virus House".

PART THREE: VIRUS HOUSE

Virus House was a code name for German Atomic research, that came from one of the laboratories being a former medical research building. The German researchers came to the conclusion that building an atomic bomb, while possible, would be extremely costly, and time consuming - and it didn't look like Germany had the time or resources for the program.... but suddenly, in late 1944, a number of odd events occurred.

• German aircraft designers were told to tender designs for a bomber capable of flying to New York and back, without refueling. The bomb load was to be 4000 Kilograms; surprisingly light for an attack that could have any real effect. The Horton firm was given the assignment, with the beautiful Ho XVIII flying wing bomber being the only design that could achieve the required specifications. They were told to begin construction as soon as possible.
• Work was restarted on a submarine towed pod, code named 'Test stand XII", to transport and launch the V-2 (A-4) missile. Up to three of these could be towed by a Type XXI submarine. The work was given high priority, and one of the pods, minus its internal equipment, was finished by the war's end.
• The German rocket team at Peenemunde were told to dust off the plans for the A-9/A-10 project, a two stage ICBM  capable of reaching New York. This seemed an awfully big project to start this late in the war.

PART FOUR: THE GERMAN ATOMIC BOMB

On page 225 of Myhra's book is shown a cutaway of a atomic bomb of German design. The bomb consists of a sphere, approximately 2 1/2 feet in diameter, made up of two hemispheres, bolted together around the periphery (sound familiar?). In this case though, the interior is entirely different. Ten layers of uranium, in the form of circular plates of differing diameter, are stacked inside the top half of the sphere. The plates do not lie on top of one another, but are spaced apart, so that kerosene (Paraffin, as it's referred to in the cutaway) can flow between them, in alternating layers ofuranium- kerosene- uranium- kerosene, etc. Kerosene is an excellent absorber of neutrons, so that the plates cannot interact in an atomic manner. The diagram states that the total weight of the uranium is 551 kilograms, and it would be fascinating to compare this to the weight of uranium in the "Little Boy" bomb used on Hiroshima, but I've been unable to find information on that subject (it may still be classified). A tube runs vertically through the bomb's center, and the diagram shows a small, spherical object referred to as a "Paräparat" mounted at the very center of the sphere. "Paräparat" translates as "supplement" or "compound" in English, not terribly helpful unless you know that our nuclear weapons used a small crushable ball of beryllium and polonium (called a "Urchin" or "Golf ball") to release a spray of neutrons at the beginning of the fission process. If that's what the "Paräparat" is, then its in the exact right place to accomplish the same purpose. The bottom half of the sphere appears to be a solid mass of ballast - judging by the total weight of the sphere (1000 Kilograms), this is too light to be uranium; too heavy to be heavy water; so it's probably steel or iron. It's there for a very good reason, which we will get to shortly.

PART FIVE: HOW DOES THIS THING WORK?

Okay, lets have a look at this device in action.
It's noon in New York, and millions of people are milling about, in their happy, non-National Socialist way.
Little do they suspect that only a few miles away, and thirty thousand feet above them, death awaits like a hovering Teutonic eagle, in the form of a boomerang shaped flying wing. Cunningly the aircraft has entered into American airspace undetected, its smooth shape and special carbon glued wooden structure offering little for the defense radars to see. (Yes, the Ho XVIII was indeed a stealth bomber.) The bomber's crew are tired and tense - pray to God that the bomb hasn't sprung a leak of some sort... if the kerosene were to get out from between those plates....
The bombardier sights carefully - There's the Empire State building, and that would mean with this wind.... Bomb away! Now bank, hard, and run as fast as you can!
Below the bomber, a twelve foot long, near perfectly streamlined shape, about 2 1/2 feet in diameter, begins to accelerate earthward - its speed climbs until, like Britain's "Grandslam" bomb, it is moving supersonically. The armored nose cap, for all of it's weight, now performs a vital function. The bomb strikes a twenty story building, and passes though it in a half second, drilling deeply into the ground beneath - the rapid deceleration snaps the shear pins holding the uranium plates apart, and they crash into each other hard as the top half of the sphere disintegrates under the hydraulic pressure of the compressed kerosene, which sprays, ignited by the diesel effect, in all directions. As the bomb sphere drives itself down onto the armored nose cap, a plunger crushes the "Paräparat", and neutrons spray into the mass of uranium... and... and...
One of three things happen:

• 1.  The building the bomb fell through becomes, for a few seconds, the highest structure in New York, possibly by several thousand feet. New York now has, at 500 feet across, and 200 feet deep, the biggest pothole in its history. And a hundred alarm fire to put out.
• 2.  The uranium begins to undergo a meltdown, deep under the ground of Manhattan, its weight causing the fissioning mass to sink deeper and deeper until the water table is reached. Then hot, radioactive, steam fills the air, and a good sized section of the city is uninhabitable for a decade or two.
• 3.  The people in the building assume that "Those idiots" up on the 20th floor were trying to move a safe, and we now finally have the makings of a elevator shaft, which will beat the hell out of going up all those stairs.

But let's suppose, that instead of dropping it from a plane, we were to put it into the nose of a V-2 missile, and tow it up near New York, in one of the "Test stand XII" launching containers. The device is small enough to fit with ease into the warhead compartment, and weighs the same amount as the V-2's normal warhead - coincidence? Also, the ballast in the bottom part of the sphere serves as a anvil for the Uranium to smash into, while drilling into the ground.
Now, interesting possibilities arise - the two halves of the "Little Boy" atomic bomb's uranium were shot together at around a thousand feet per second; the V-2 hits the ground at over three times that speed, and the uranium plates would be driven together with enough force to melt them on impact; under these conditions a nuclear event is far more likely - especially when it's considered that three thousand feet per second is what our Los Alamos team considered as the speed at which plutonium could be made to fission.
Remember the heavy water/uranium ball experiment?

PART SEVEN: SO HOW FAR DID THEY GET?

At the end of the war two of the prototype bomb spheres MAY HAVE been found, south of Stuttgart, also found there was the uranium cauldron that I mentioned earlier. The two prototype bombs were supposedly found submerged in water by forces of the French Army, who supposedly destroyed them, along with the lab they were in, by explosives. The fact that they were being stored under water makes it sound like they may well have been ready for testing, and it would be interesting to know if the supposed site is still contaminated.

PART EIGHT: "VENGEANCE"

 I couldn't let this article be complete without putting one piece of balderdash to rest.
A book has been written by a Mr. Philip Henshall, in which he contends that the Germans were designing a modified V-2 to carry atomic materials, he has a set of intricate drawings in his book, which purport to show a device called a "Korsett" which he contends is a strengthening structure to allow a V-2 to carry a payload between it's motor and fuel tanks. He treats this as a great discovery of a Nazi rocket secret.
In an odd way, this is correct - here's the true story of the "korsett", and why German rocket scientists wouldn't talk about it, from G. Harry Stine's book "ICBM", page 65 (Stine is quoting Konrad K. Dannenberg) "The first A-4 missile was a hand-made job. Motor tests preceding the a first test flight were to be carried out in a huge, mobile test stand which held the entire missile. However, this first A-4 never flew. It found it's end in that test stand. In order to clamp the missile into the stand without attaching the thrust mounts to the missile structure, a large steel corset was built. Unfortunately, the builders of this corset did not take into account the shrinkage of the missile components when the frigid liquid oxygen was pumped aboard. The first A-4 shrank, dropped out of the corset, and was a total wash-out."
As one can well imagine, the Peenemunde team were not eager for this story to gain wide distribution - It doesn't take a rocket scientist to remember that cold causes things to shrink.
Other "interesting" ideas in Henshall's book include how the V-2 is supposed to fly to a greater range, while carrying half the fuel, and lugging the terribly unstreamlined "Korsett" along for the ride. And best of all, how it's to fly at all with the center of gravity moved back, due to the lack of a nose warhead. Flights of captured V-2s at White Sands after the war had to have ballast put into the nose if the experiments weren't heavy enough, or the rocket would go out of control.

THE HORTON BROTHERS and Their All-Wing Aircraft. David Myhra, Schiffer books, 1998- THE book on the Hortons, and their beautiful aircraft! They look futuristic even now. Main source of information for this article.
HEISENBERG'S WAR. Thomas Powers, Knopf, 1993- Mainly about interaction of German and Allied physicists, before and during war, has the explosion of the test sphere described in detail.
U.S. NUCLEAR WEAPONS. Chuck Hanson, Orion books, 1988 - everything about everything atomic.
THE MAKING OF THE ATOMIC BOMB. Richard Rhodes, Simon and Schuster, 1986- find out why polonium is the weirdest stuff around....
ICBM. G.Harry Stine, Orion Books, 1991- Stine knows his stuff - discussion of missiles by an old missile hand. Great stories of the good ol' days at White Sands. He almost ended up owning a V-2!
V MISSILES OF THE THIRD REICH. Dieter Holsken, Monogram books, 1994- Typically top shelf Monogram production. Everything about everything - you may be able to build a buzz bomb by the time you finish the book, and you'll even know how to camouflage it.
THE NAZIS AND THE OCCULT. Dusty Sklar, Dorset Press. 1977- Bet you didn't know that there's a wall of ice up in the sky. Or that V-2's might knock holes in it, and flood the world. That's the normal part of Nazi cosmology - wait to you read the strange stuff.
VENGEANCE, Philip Henshall, Alan Sutton Publishing, 1995- Well, it may all make sense to him, but it's complete hogwash as far as I'm concerned.
READERS DIGEST, MARCH 1999, pages 87-92 "Tale of the Radioactive Boy Scout"  If you ever wanted to be a Mad Scientist when you were young, prepare to meet someone who really is DEXTER CLASS!

OKAY, SO I'M SPECULATING..... BUT ONLY A LITTLE...

If you've got a better interpretation of this data, get in touch with me at  flanner@daktel.com
(And anyone who start's talking about South Polar Openings, Atomic Flying Saucers, or Little Panzer Grays coming down from the skies, is in trouble!)

  ----------------------------------------------------------

Part 2 The WW2 German plutonium generator and/or dirty radiation devise -------------------

Leipzeig Sphere L-IV Plutonium Generator
                   (Circa June 1942)          by Pat F.

			Common Water Heavy Water Uranium Metal Powder (U238/235) Plutonium Enriched Uranium Radium or Radon Gas/Aluminum Alpha Particle to Neutron Converter Neutrons Being Slowed Neutron Impact & Pu-239/240 Creation Neutrons Being Absorbed by Water
Diameter  740 mm (2' 5")           750 kg (1653 lbs) Uranium Metal           2.2 liters (0.58 gallon) Heavy Water	All Data Provisional

1.-HAIGERLOCH

     If there were two bombs found at the end of the war, they were not in all likelihood found at Haigerloch, Germany. Haigerloch has, like Roswell, New Mexico, developed a reputation as a site of some terrible hidden secret. If the bombs had been there, and been destroyed with explosives by the French as Myhra stated in his book, there should be some residual radioactive contamination on the site. Not only is this not the case, but the French Forces (French Moroccan forces to be precise) missed Haigerloch entirely. And ALSOS, the Allied atomic intelligence team arrived first at the site. What was, and still is, in Haigerloch is the site of the "Uranium machine" (The cauldron of heavy water with the uranium cubes in it), which is now the "Atomskeller Museum", dedicated to the town's place in atomic history. Also, the German's supply of Heavy Water and uranium for the reactor was buried in a field outside of town, to be later recovered by the Allies.
     A representative of the Museum has informed me that every few years, the atomic bomb theory re-surfaces, and the town is checked for contamination, and given a clean bill of health. This has happened at least twice, and frankly, the inhabitants are getting a little tired of it.
     As I don't want the City Fathers of Haigerloch to come knocking angrily at my door, for starting this mess going all over again, I hereby formally apologize to the city, and people, of Haigerloch for any annoyance that I may have caused it. The representative of the Museum further states that though no bomb spheres were located there, this does not mean that they did not exist, although he finds it unlikely.

2.-IF NOT HAIGERLOCH, THEN ANYWHERE?

Where the French forces did arrive first was the town of Hechingen, down the road from Haigerloch, with ALSOS in hot pursuit. In Hechingen, the atomic research works were located in a woolen mill, which is interesting- Myhra's book states that the bomb spheres were found in a  former TEXTILE Factory by the French forces; so here we have an intriguing conjunction of two parts of the story, but in a different town. (The Haigerloch Laboratory was in a cave under a church). This should be examined more closely.... but could be Haigerloch all over again- just rumors.

3.- BOMBS, OR ATOMIC PILES?

As readers of the article have pointed out, the cutaway of the hypothetical bomb I drew bears a striking resemblance to one of Heisenberg's earliest experiments with a heavy water/uranium reactor design, with a few major differences- The reactor Heisenberg built used uranium and HEAVY WATER in alternating layers; whereas the drawing in Myhra's book shows uranium and PARAFFIN (kerosene) in it's layers.
This is a very key difference: if it has Heavy Water in it, then it is almost certainly a reactor. If it has paraffin in it, then it is almost certainly a bomb.
Heavy Water serves as a neutron slowing moderator, allowing neutrons to either cause fission of U-235, or the transmutation of U-238 into plutonium 239/240 via their absorption. Remember this about absorption- we'll be getting back to it shortly.
Paraffin, on the other hand, stops neutrons dead in their tracks, and is about the last thing anyone trying to make a reactor would put into it. The only reason that you would put Paraffin into something atomic would be to prevent, not start, a nuclear reaction.
Another difference is that the drawing in Myrha's book shows the bottom of the sphere to be empty, or at least not containing uranium and " whatever". A atomic pile would, in all likelihood, have a mirror image set of Heavy Water/uranium layers in it's bottom half.
Interestingly, in both cases, you would find a "Praparat" neutron emitting source at the center- in the case of the bomb this would start the reaction as it was crushed of impact, releasing a spray of neutrons, in the same way our polonium/beryllium "urchins" did on our early atomic bombs. In the reactor it could serve as a source of fast neutrons to cause the fission of U-235,or the transmutation of U-238 into plutonium.... Which leads us to.....

4.- WHAT WERE THE GERMANS UP TO?  ( OR- PAT DARINGLY PLACES HIS HEAD INTO THE LION'S MOUTH ONCE AGAIN, THE WOUNDS HAVING ALMOST HEALED FROM THE FIRST TIME.)

In the original article, I mentioned the Leipzig sphere, and it's catastrophic failure on June 23rd, 1942. There is a cutaway drawing of the Leipzig sphere with this article. Proportions may not be exact- but this, by and large, is what it looked like, and what would happen if you put a powerful neutron source and uranium metal powder into it.
One of the key sources for speculating ( yup, I'm speculating again!) about this device, and the purpose behind it, was the "Tale of the Radioactive Boy Scout" that was originally published in Harper's Magazine, and re-published in Reader's Digest in March, 1999. The article is by Ken Silverstein, and concerns the story of a seventeen year old, David Hahn, who built a breeder reactor out of some radium paint, beryllium strip, uranium ore, aluminum foil, gas lamp mantles, duct tape, and a unnamed moderator (I think we can safely assume graphite; although as inventive as this kid was, I wouldn't rule out Heavy Water- maybe we should check the guest book at Norsk Hydro!) Now these are just the sort of things that Heisenberg put into his Leipzig Sphere. (Okay- despite a multi-billion Reichsmark research project, Germany was unable to develop duct tape during the war, and the sad results of the use of the their "Uberstickenstuffengluen Ersatzenductishtappen" on the Ta-154, are well known) And if something done by a high school student in 1994 leads to a nuclear de-contamination crew showing up in full "Moonsuit" apparel because the family garage is now 1000 times as radioactive as the surrounding community, I think that the same experiment would produce very much the same results in 1942, especially given that the German Physicists didn't have to buy their materials with their weekly allowance.
In fact, what David Hahn designed is SO close to Germany's atomic research, that one may well suspect that he was inspired by it.
So here's what I think happened: the German physicists, having dropped the ball on the use of graphite as a moderator for neutrons, and having a hard time getting heavy water in the quantities they would need for any "large scale" use of reactors, began looking at the use of isotopic bombardment to convert uranium into something that could be used in a reactor....or a weapon. The Leipzig Sphere was meant to sit submerged for several weeks, while a steady stream of fast neutrons were slowed by Heavy Water, and then passed through the uranium metal powder mixture, causing fission and the release of more neutrons, in the case of impact with U-235 atoms (comprising only 1/10 of one percent of the total uranium mass), and the transmutation of the remaining U-238 into plutonium 239/240, as well as several other radioactive compounds.
In the U.S., Enrico Fermi did almost exactly the same thing, trying first polonium (without much success), and then radon gas (quite successfully ) as a alpha particle source, to generate neutrons that could initiate the fission of atoms of U-235 in unenriched uranium metal. The research, while useful scientifically in understanding the specifics of fission, was never pursued beyond the laboratory phase, as we realized that the uranium metal/graphite reactor would be the way to proceed; Its tremendous output of neutrons capable of converting a fraction of U-238 target material into weapons grade plutonium, (and not much of a fraction- we thought that 250 parts per million was about what was going to be achieved!) in what is called a "Breeder Reactor".
The Germans may have very well have trying to build a "Breeder Reactor" based on a far less complicated technique than the U.S. used.

5.- SO WHAT WENT HAYWIRE IN JUNE, 1942?

As mentioned earlier, the Leipzig Sphere caught fire, and later exploded, on June 23rd, 1942. At the time, it had been submerged in it's pool of water for three weeks. (And I FINALLY know what the pool of water is about- it absorbs the neutrons after they pass through the inside of the sphere, so that they don't injure the workers in the vicinity; we used the same technique on our "Swimming Pool" type reactors, which we used to.... you guessed it- breed plutonium!)
One of the readers of my article asked if what happened in the Leipzig Sphere was a uranium fire- uranium does burn, and burns well, and if you ever want to see it doing so, watch a film of a A-10 attack aircraft using it's 30MM "Avenger" cannon on a tank sometime- that hail of sparks is the depleted uranium (pure U-238, after the U-235 has been removed) core of the projectiles burning.
The most likely scenario goes something like this- the water the sphere is submerged in leaked past the seal holding the upper and lower hemispheres together.... and began to oxidize the uranium metal, which oxidized very quickly. This generated heat, as well as hydrogen gas from the disassociated water molecules. The heat raised the pressure in the sphere to the point where gas began to escape around the periphery of the seal and was noticed by the scientists. As the temperature continued to rise, the uranium mixture ignited; and there was a short-lived, but intense, fire in the uranium powder. The fire started to burn out, as the last of the leaking water was stripped of its oxygen. The sphere then cooled, and a partial vacuum formed inside, which was only relieved when the access hatch was opened, and (unfortunately) air admitted into the sphere, starting the fire going full force again. This is hands down the most likely scenario.
There's a oddity in this story though; when Heisenberg built the the other, earlier sphere mentioned above (the one with layers) in September, 1941, he used uranium OXIDE (as opposed to uranium metal) as the filling. This should have eliminated the fire hazard from water leakage, and on this earlier sphere he did find a increase in neutron activity. Considering the difficulty of making un-oxidized uranium metal, and loading it into the sphere in that state, and considering that he had already had luck with the oxidized form, why did he choose a form that had a real fire potential? Did he think it would work better? There is also the peculiarity of the original "stacked" design of pile from 1941. The neutron radiation from the central source would either end up going through differing numbers of alternating layers of Heavy Water and uranium oxide diagonally- in the case of a central source; or horizontally between them- in the case of a tubular source running vertically through the center of the sphere. Neither of these approaches would be optimal to get a reaction going, but a centrally placed source WOULD allow you to disassemble the pile at the end of the experiment and measure changes in each of the uranium layers, further and further from the neutron source, and through more and more heavy water, with an eye toward isotopic transmutation, and the ideal conditions for plutonium creation.... I'm speculating here.
Okay; as I said, the end result of slow neutron bombardment on uranium 238 is the creation of two types of plutonium Pu-239, and Pu-240. These two isotopes of plutonium were very difficult, if not impossible, to separate back in the early days of atomic weapons, and if someone's figured out a way to do it nowadays, it's classified. The two types of plutonium have one major, and decidedly unpleasant difference, Pu-240 undergoes fission with greater ease than Pu-239 does. In a bomb design, this means that the simple "Gun Type" assembly system for a critical mass (that we used for the "Little Boy" Hiroshima bomb), while workable for U-235, would not work with plutonium bombs- The plutonium 240 in the "Bullet" would start to fission, and melt down, in the gun tube, before it could strike the main mass of plutonium. We were forced to use the "Explosive Lens Implosion", far more involved, but necessary, if we were to use our U-235 to make "Breeder Reactors" for the production of plutonium,- and every pound of enriched U-235/238  could make many pounds of plutonium.
We found out about this problem with plutonium fairly far on in our bomb program- "Little Boy" was originally called "Thin Man" in honor of F.D.R. (as "Fat Man" was named after Churchill). The bomb would have been longer, and have used a higher speed cannon to shoot the critical masses, intended to be plutonium, together.
If the Germans had gotten as far as also discovering the problem with Pu-240, they would have realized that this could dead-end their atomic program; They didn't have the time, resources, or money to build a uranium enrichment facility as we did, plus the fact that such a large enterprise would certainly attract the attention of allied intelligence, and shortly thereafter, bombers.
So it was isotopic plutonium production, or nothing.
A good argument for the Leipzig sphere being a plutonium generator is that both it, and our first generation breeder reactors, used uranium POWDER as the material to undergo transmutation. The Leipzig sphere could very well have used a different type of process,with the same end in mind.
And now we come to June 1942- and speculation........

6.-SPECULATION- THIS IS A MILLION TO ONE SHOT!

Things have been going well- the change from radium to pressurized radon gas has indeed produced the neutrons in the abundance needed to convert some of the U-238 into the fissionable plutonium, and the slowly increasing radiation count from the submerged sphere shows this- care will have to be taken in timing the removal of the neutron generator, as the process will increase in speed as things progress. But there should be a good safety margin, and worthwhile plutonium amounts, ready to be separated.
Meanwhile, down in the sphere, the newly created plutonium 240 isotopes begin to feel the influence of each other.... and begin to warm up. The air in the sphere begins to heat and expand, and the pressure pushes air past the seal holding the two hemispheres together. Bubbles start to rise in the shielding tank- they are of hydrogen gas, indicating that some of the outside water may have leaked in, and is breaking down into it's two constituent parts. A uranium fire? -possible- but what was the heat source for ignition? Something to do with the experiment?
Speculation- But what's not speculation is the fact that the Germans sat a ball of uranium powder and Heavy Water in a radiation absorbing pool, stuck a neutron source down the top, and waited around for three weeks to see what would happen. If this was a reactor test, they would have known if it was going to go critical a lot faster than three weeks, and if it had, would have had a nifty potential little meltdown on their hands. You wouldn't known things had started until the neutron count started going nearly vertical, and at that point the amount of neutrons being emitted from the central source would be inconsequential, and it's removal wouldn't stop things. The "Cauldron" type Uranium machine found in Haigerloch solved this meltdown problem in a simple, elegant way- If a chain reaction started, the uranium cubes would heat up, causing the Heavy Water they were immersed in to boil away, and without the moderating influence of the Heavy Water, the reaction would cease. At least one HOPED it would!
  As a reactor, the Leipzig sphere was a flop - as a plutonium breeder, intentionally, or unintentionally, it's a damn clever device.
So if it was a plutonium breeder, what about the Pu-240 problem? If the Germans did find out the difference between Pu-239 and Pu-240, either by research; or the hard way, they would have realized that a bomb design would need to take this into account.
The plutonium enriched uranium would have to be kept atomically isolated until the moment of detonation. Shielding, capable of stopping the Pu-240 from undergoing premature fission would have to be provided, that would have to remove itself at the moment of nuclear assembly so quickly that the Pu-240 would have no time to react before the Pu-239 did.
To even have a hope of making this work, three things would be required:

    A.- An excellent radiation absorbing substance- such as Kerosene, To block the emissions of the Pu-240, which would nevertheless disperse quickly, being a liquid, on impact.

    B.- The closest proximity of the plutonium enriched uranium subcritical masses, so that fast assembly could be assured. No more than a couple of inches.

    C.- The highest impact speed possible- Mach 3.5 in the nose of a V-2.

If you look at the cutaway in my original article, it meets all of these criteria.

People wanting to chew on the author may reach him at flanner@daktel.com ; and are advised that most German/English translation guides don't include  words of a more "colorful" nature, so they should cuss him in English.

SOURCES-

Same as original article- as well as other E-mail that I have received, the senders of which shall remain private; But my thanks; especially to someone at Oak Ridge, Tennessee; And someone at the University of Augsburg, Germany.

The NAZI's had neither the technical expertise nor the finances to design and build an atomic bomb in WW2. They made a big cannon, improved American Robert Goddard's liquid-fueled rocket, and got bombed into submission.

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